EWW. ROO.

After I snapped this photo, I ate that roo. I couldn’t resist filet ‘o roo, cooked to medium and served with potato rosti, wilted baby spinach, sweet potato chips, and red onion jam. There it was on the menu, saddled between the bangers ‘n mash and the Irish corned beef. I was sitting in P.J. O’Brien’s at the airport, and I had six hours to kill before my connection into Adelaide. I was kind of surprised to see it on the menu, but I guess I shouldn’t have been. It’s a standard Aussie dish, and was enthusiastically recommended by the barkeep. At the supermarket it is displayed in the meat aisle as a “Lean and Healthy” item, next to the turkey. I guess it's good for you. To me, it tasted like somewhere between a bland piece of steak and one of my Mom’s crock pot roasts.

The strangest thing about eating kangaroo is dealing with the thoughts that go through your mind as you chew the sinewy dead marsupial. You think about it’s rat-like skin. That’s kind of gross. Then you think about what a cool animal it is. And that makes you feel guilty. For me, eating roo was a way to go ahead and try to get over even worse guilt. We are planning to go roo shootin’ with Jo’s uncle in a couple of days. I figure that pulling a shotgun trigger from the back of a four-wheel drive and then watching a man skin a roo must be an even more visceral experience than putting a fork in your mouth. But how can I pass up this opportunity? If the guilt persists, I’ll just pretend I'm on a nutria hunt in St. Bernard Parish back in New Orleans.

As I was eating, I noticed a man wearing a soccer jersey at the table next to mine. The jersey said “Socceroos.” The Socceroos are Australia’ s national soccer team. Besides being the Olympic mascot and the national animal, the kangaroo is the mascot for many an Australian sports squad. . . the Hockey Roos, the Boomers, and on and on. I think it is the fact that the kangaroo is a mascot that makes it seem unfit for dinner. No one eats eagles, or tigers, Golden Lions, or beavers. Not where I come from. Today I was watching an Aussie rules football match in Adelaide with Jo’s family. When I told her brother I had eaten roo meat, he laughed and said, “So you had to eat our mascot, huh?”

I knew I wasn’t crazy for feeling twisted about it all. I strained to think of another mascot people eat and then it dawned on me.

"Ducks."

The Mighty Ducks.





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